When you’re a child of an island nation, the water is never that far away from you. It’s both your oldest neighbor and your worst nightmare. You may not see it for half the year, but it always comes.

Growing up in my childhood home in the northern part of Jakarta, Indonesia, my sisters and I were trained by my parents to always be ready in case the water breaks in. Back in those days, some twenty years ago, whenever the monsoon months were upon us, our neighborhood would always be at the mercy of the rains and floods that inevitably arrived. The area that we lived in is called “Pluit”—Indonesian for “whistle”—and was once a swamp, where fishermen often docked to sell their fish. The swamplands that were across from my house used to house a small crocodile park, and I remember, when I was a toddler, when all the giant cranes and bulldozers arrived to start filling up those lands with concrete and sand in order to erect a huge shopping mall—the biggest in the neighborhood at the time. By the time they finished—and I grew up—the crocodiles were gone, although the adults would always joke that if we kids wandered too far from our parents while we were at the mall, we might just get eaten by a stray croc. I never did see one, but I was always on the lookout, just in case.

The crocs were gone, but the waters they once swam in had to go somewhere—especially during the rainy season. All the pipes and parks were covered in sewage and trash, so we knew where the water would go—the only place it could go. Over days and weeks, the waves would slowly build up and start to creep their way into our homes, like a wandering salesman that refuses to leave. Luckily for us, our family has never been caught in a true tropical monsoon, the kind that destroys houses with incessant downpour. We just had to wait out the tides, often leaving the house for a few days until the water line recedes. I’ve left my home in all sorts of vehicles, ranging from big SUVs to military trucks to a rubber boat, floating away from my little personal island, hoping to be back soon. We always returned, though not always in a good mood. We’ve lost items to water damage, but fortunately nothing else. We always clean up and rebuild, one puddle at a time: the resilience—or is it resignation?—of those living with the water.

I still live in my childhood home, and the swamplands that I grew up with have crystallized into hard concrete, with more apartments and shopping malls than I can count with my two hands. More and more land is “reclaimed” every year, as the real estate creeps further out into the sea. I see bigger cranes and bulldozers than before. I think back to my days on the rubber boat, with my sisters and neighbors, riding out to higher ground, and wonder: when will the water come?

Will we still be here to greet it when it does?

Dałaa    naki      táági     dįį’i
blue words blue birds
ask me about the cloudy water on the rez and
apache koolaid
red stained hands from drying and cleaning crimson seeds

Harris said quitters never win and winners never quit
Who are the real winners on a Sunday afternoon? A Monday morning?
When wildfires are hazing the sky and we can’t enjoy sunrises because of pollution?

Lay your head in your mother’s hands and remind yourself to count to 10

Dałaa    naki      táági     dįį’i

Stopped at 4 I wonder if cottonwood bark is a map to the next world

A whole pot of jelly for a little slice of bread
I’m from sunny cloudy days at A1 lake
Fishing and singing to the Apache trout
I can’t remember the songs I sang like I’m sure the fish don’t remember my name 
Or maybe they never forgot and have been waiting all this time for those soft songs

and on those same monday mornings and sunday afternoons there’s so much to be thankful for.

silver shimmer lakes, peach mango trees, strawberry colored sunsets. snow that sticks to eyelashes, fresh green and yellow pollen of juniper trees and the sun that kisses our skin everyday
the clouds that wave hello and mt baldy who holds all our hearts

to love to love to love

we as five fingered people have so much love to share and to find in this world
so much to protect and so much to care for
sitting here with a brown sugar shaken espresso
i wonder how the land feels all week long
when nothing seems to change and nobody seems to care

holding our bodies, our languages, our histories
while we build more, we dig out more, we take more and more

at what point does the land begin to let go of everything held? 

Dałaa naki táági dįį’i

4 rows of ric rac on my campdresses
4 plates with commodity cheese and spaghetti while government officials eat at the vatican 
4 arms reach to the sky from a single corn stalk
4 oranges peeled, shared and left back to the earth

dįį’i dįį’i dįį’i dįį’i

I started getting involved in climate activism about six years ago. I grew up surrounded by forests—the beautiful green forest in my village, in particular. It nurtured in me an early love for nature. As I grew older, the forest was slowly cleared, and I was overwhelmed with sadness. As I mourned the loss of my beautiful green forest, I grew increasingly determined to engage in climate activism, and I started planting trees. I began by planting trees in my village, and today I continue to dedicate my time and effort to this calling, working to expand my activism by inspiring others.

Since I embarked on this journey, I have managed to create awareness in my village through the planting of trees. I see this as a great achievement both at the personal and the community level. The main challenge I have encountered as an activist in Zambia is a lack of awareness. How can I convince people that there is climate change? How do I make them aware of the challenges and impact climate change has on their daily lives? In answer to this, I have started to engage youth in my community to strike with Friday for Future. Together, we march and demand climate action now.

I am the founder of Citizens’ Network for Community Development Zambia. I established the organization to inspire climate action and to raise awareness through campaigns and local solutions to climate change issues. I am a trained Climate Reality Leader, and I work with Climate Live in order to meet others from around the world who are also working on climate issues. My organization’s primary aim is to connect young people and to educate them and encourage them to participate in local political processes. Citizens’ Network for Community Development Zambia is the only local Zambian organization educating young people about the relationship between community development and the environment.

My personal aim is to help make other young people more aware of the human impact on the environment and the direct outcome of this on their lives. I believe that together we can pave the way in Zambia for a green and thriving future.

“Ah, just one more day to summer vacation,” I wonder as the bus halts to an abrupt stop.

The summer sun is burrowing a laziness in my eyes that I would not be able to fight off for more than ten minutes. I gingerly slide towards the window seat, resting my head on the metal bars. With my drowsy head partly sticking out, I gaze up, smiling goofily as the canopy of trees lining the street indulge me in a never-ending game of hide and seek. The flitting shadows coquettishly dance on my face, and I endear myself to the distraction until my stop arrives. The dance of sun and shadows gives way to a harsh sun staring right into my face. I jog half-panting, half-tired, eagerly awaiting the cooler’s chilly wind to hit my temples glazed with sweat. “Mama, I finished my water in the recess,” I blurt out as I flung my bag and reach for the chilled glass of lemonade.

Now that I am old, I wonder sometimes why the lemonade doesn’t taste as good as it used to in my school days.

I pace into my room impatiently, my hands still dripping wet as I furiously scrunch the faded shirt that mama had set out for me that day. I start whining about how uncomfortable it looks, to which she calmly responds, “Your shirt will start crying if you don’t wear it—it also feels sad. It will be happy once you wear it.”

And that’s how she has convinced me to not only wear clothes but also eat vegetables I dislike. Now that I look back, the seeds of all that I do had already been planted way back. Growing up, mama cultivated a deep sense of empathy in me. She would also weave marvellous tales for us about the imaginary life of plants in our veranda—how they would dance and eat and party just like us.

For the longest time I had been ignorant of the depth and beauty of these stories. It’s only when I closely observed her playfully engaging my younger cousins in her world of fantasy that I realized how critical her stories have been in making me, and everyone who had the joy of being nurtured by her, more attuned to nature.

My mother did more than just gift me with life: she poured life into everything that met her golden gaze.

That’s why she is one of the reasons as to why I write, and why I consider poetic expression to be a powerful medium for bringing people into the fold of climate action.

She made me realize that you don’t have to lead a big organization to make a difference; rather, true leadership is about inspiring even one person who has come in contact with you and igniting the spark of altruism within them.

One can nurture a deep inner sensitivity for nature, a capacity for empathy, by reconnecting with oneself first and then allowing it to translate into little acts of kindness.

When my mother told me that my clothes were going to cry, I obviously knew that it wasn’t literally true, but it made me realize that a lot of care goes into creating a piece of clothing. When my mother talks about plants having a life of their own, that is indeed true, even though they don’t hop out of their pots to party at night when the kids go to sleep. It nudged me to see deforestation not just from a profit-loss perspective for humanity, but also to feel the grief of a tree uprooted by those to whom it gives unconditionally and asks for nothing in return except the right to exist, which was never ours to confer to begin with.

Thus, the poems I write are mostly about nature. I haven’t been able to write a love poem about a human yet, but if you ask me to write a love poem about the moon, the sun, plants, I can do that without any hesitation.

It is to my mom that I owe the gift of creativity and empathy which inspired me to bring to fruition Poetry for Planet, an international youth-led movement that leverages the power of creativity and empathy to highlight the inspirational sagas of climate leaders from across the world in their mother tongue. I came up with the idea a year ago but its foundations, it seems, had been laid down way earlier.

I truly believe that we really are the product of all that we have met. I owe all my creativity to my mom and dad. (My dad also scribbles shayari on social issues. Shayari is a succinct yet deeply evocative form of poetry in India written in our native language). All that I have been able to do so far is in large part owed to my family. When I speak on panels and work for the causes that I believe in, these reflections keep me grounded and serve as a reminder to continue fighting the good fight. It really goes back to the simpler ideas that truly make us great. This story is a letter of acknowledgement, love, respect and gratitude to the hidden yet most powerful forces that have shaped me into who I am today.

A LEAF’S REBELLION

As a leaf
Donned in monsoon’s crocheted
pearl sweater
I dangle from a scrawny twig,
(Which too is holding onto dear life)
As if I am on the edge of life and death
Emulating the rhythm of Earth.

For the carefree wind,
Playing peek-a-boo with my vaporising sweater,
is nothing but a mere flirtation;
A windfall gain for the wind that teases not to marry.
If I take the leap
And let her sweep me off my twig,
The kiss of death would plant itself on me way before
the wind could even catch the sniff of my perfume.

I instead choose to persevere,
Ignoring her as she jeers
I turn crisp, crackling under her coy fingers;
A mellow yellow;
Just minutes away from disintegrating,
still tethering on the edge;
Awaiting my demise in the warm autumn
To be relieved of my ordeal as the crunch under your feet.

I have no lofty aspirations
to be embalmed till posterity,
With layers and layers of blind greed and ambition
Only to be achieve a false nirvana as black gold
“Of the highest order,
In the highest service,
Much above oxygen.”
But they say power corrupts,
So, spare me and let me spare my brethren
Whose life is the cost of my distorted ambition.

Immortalize me instead,
as the soft crunch under your feet;
my soul’s true liberation.
Not as the chokehold for my brethren
Not as a gush of wind pushing my ailing mother to the precipice.
Don’t preserve me.
Unfetter me so I can unfetter my mother.

I have a love story for you all.

In December, here in New York City, I visited the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine with a long-distance lover who was visiting me. I’m still figuring out how I feel about churches. Here I was, a gay Mexican raised Catholic, walking into a magnificent, grand hall filled with sculptures, next to a man that I like. A Keith Haring piece stared back at us, and I wondered if maybe there might be space in my religion for my full self. As my lover headed back across the country to his own island, the island of Catalina, he gifted me one of his favorite books as homework: The Dream of the Earth by Thomas Berry. I flipped through its pages eagerly, waiting for the moment when we’d meet again.

Coincidentally, the book told a story also set in the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. There, in the 1970s, there had been a public discussion on technology and the natural world. Standing in the middle of this church where I had stood just a few weeks before, John Fire Lame Deer, a Lakota spiritual leader, remarked to the congregation how interesting it was that their people found themselves closer to the divine in places like that cathedral. He said that for his own people, if they wanted to go closer to the divine, they would go to a field under the sky, surrounded by trees, with the earth under their feet. And so my mission became clearer: since my lover had visited this cathedral on my island, when I visited him in Catalina, I wanted to visit the Cathedral of Nature.

Three months went by, and soon enough, I was with him—crawling under muddy fences, snorkeling in underwater forests, jumping over streams. When we reached a summit, instead of the glorious view, we stared at magnificently complex lichen on the rock. I knew we had reached it: the Cathedral of Nature. I told my lover how much the shape of the fungus reminded me of the patterns I saw from the plane, flying over the snowy mountains of Utah: the same pattern as rivers, the same pattern as veins or neurons. He looked at me and said, very matter of fact, “It’s the path of least resistance.”

And something so obvious hadn’t occurred to me. The same forces that made rivers, that made mountains, that made stars, made the veins in my body, pumping my blood, raising my heartbeat as I sat next to him.

The book The Dream of the Earth describes a vision: that young humans might one day hold their hand up and think, “it’s taken fourteen billion years for this hand to form.” And as I looked down from a hill in Catalina over the ocean, in the Cathedral of Nature, I could look at my hand holding my lover’s hand and, for the first time, see myself made in the image of God.

A mi no me importaba la crisis climática. Pensaba que era un problema lejano, algo que solo afectaría en el futuro. Además, viviendo en Argentina, un país donde tantas personas viven en una situación de pobreza por una crisis económica desde que tengo memoria, la crisis climática claramente no era algo que yo consideraba una prioridad.

Hasta 2019 a mi me gustaba en enero ponerme los objetivos para ese año. Pero ese año, mis planes cambiaron totalmente. En febrero de 2019 me topé con un video de Greta Thunberg convocando a la primera marcha internacional climática. Cuando lo ví, no entendía porque había jóvenes de mi misma edad protestando por un tema que en mi país no se hablaba en absoluto. En la escuela nunca me habían enseñado sobre la crisis climática. Los medios de comunicación no hablaban del tema y no era un tema presente con mis amigos o familia.  Siempre fui muy curiosa así que me dio bronca no tener acceso a información que otras personas por vivir en otro lado del mundo al parecer sí tenían. 

No dude en empezar a leer sobre el tema. Mientras más leía, más me inundaba un sentimiento de miedo, angustia y bronca. Nuestro presente y futuro estaba en juego por decisiones que mi generación no tomó pero sin embargo íbamos a tener que heredar. Leí una nota que decía “la crisis climática es un asunto de derechos humanos”. Hoy en día, tal vez esto me parece obvio, pero en ese momento, me cambió totalmente la perspectiva. La crisis climática ya estaba afectando a derechos humanos básicos en mi país como el derecho a la salud, a la educación e incluso a la vida. Por lo que con más razón viviendo en un país con tantos problemas económicos y en donde 60% de los niños son pobres la crisis climática nos debería importar, y mucho.. 

Ahí tomé la mejor decisión de mi vida. Convertir mi bronca e indignación en acción colectiva. Entendí que solo cambiar mis hábitos no era suficiente. Tenía que cambiar algo más grande, y, para eso teníamos que crear un colectivo. Me junté con unos amigos y creamos Jóvenes por el clima para organizar la primera marcha por el clima en Argentina liderada por la juventud. Ninguno de nosotros tenía experiencia ni sabía cómo se hacía. Había que cortar la calle, pedir permiso a los policías, tratar de convocar a medios de comunicación y aprender a comunicar en redes sociales. Sin embargo, lo hicimos con solo 10 días de anticipación. 

Llegó el día. 15 de marzo de 2019. La gente empezaba a llegar. Si les soy sincera, como mido menos de 1 metro 60, no podía ver bien cuántas personas éramos, pero la expectativa ya estaba superada. No me esperaba que seamos más de 100. Cuando subí al escenario para dar un discurso vi desde arriba y me invadió un sentimiento que me acompaña hasta hoy en día: si nosotros no organizamos esa primera movilización…. ¿Quién lo hacía? Éramos 5,000 personas. Esta fue la primera reunión de Jóvenes por el clima que ya tiene quatro años. Jóvenes por el clima ya tiene 4 años. En estos 4 años muchas cosas cambiaron y otras no. Logramos que se apruebe la ley de cc, de educación ambiental, la ratificación del Acuerdo de Escazú, organizamos marchas de más de 50.000 personas, dimos más de 70 talleres de educación ambiental. La lista podría seguir. El camino hasta llegar a construir el mundo en el que queremos vivir es largo. Pero si no lo hacemos nosotros ¿quién lo va a hacer?

I didn’t care about the climate crisis. I thought it was a distant problem, something that would only affect the future. What’s more, living in Argentina, a country where so many people have lived in poverty due to economic crisis for as long as I can remember, I obviously did not consider the climate crisis a priority.

Until 2019, I enjoyed setting goals every January for the coming year. But that year, my plans changed completely. In February 2019, I came across a video of Greta Thunberg calling for the first international climate march. When I saw it, I didn’t understand why there were young people of my age protesting an issue that was not discussed at all in my country. At school, I had never been taught about the climate crisis. The media didn’t talk about it, and it was not a familiar topic among my friends or family. I was always very curious, so it annoyed me that I didn’t have access to information that other people had, apparently because they lived in another part of the world.

I did not hesitate to begin reading up on the subject. The more I read, the more a feeling of fear, anguish, and anger filled me. Our present and our future were at stake as the result of decisions that my generation did not make, but nevertheless would have to inherit. I read a note that said, “The climate crisis is a human rights issue.” Today, perhaps this seems obvious to me, but at that moment, my perspective totally changed. The climate crisis was already affecting basic human rights in my country such as the right to health, education, and even life. For this reason, living in a country with so many economic problems and where 60% of children are poor, the climate crisis should matter to us a lot…

It was then that I made the best decision of my life. I would turn my anger and outrage into collective action. I understood that simply changing my habits was not enough. Something bigger had to change, and to do that, we had to assemble a team. I gathered with friends, and we created the first Young People for Climate March organized in Argentina, led by youth. None of us had any experience or any idea of how to go about things. We had to block off the street, request a permit from the police, and learn to communicate across social media. Nevertheless, we managed to get it all done with only ten days to go before the march.

And then, the day came. March 15, 2019. People started to arrive. If I’m honest with you, I’m less than 1 meter and 60 centimeters tall, so I couldn’t really see how many people were there, but our expectations were surpassed. I didn’t think we would be more than 100 people. But then, when I got up on the stage to give a speech, I saw how many people had come and I was overwhelmed by a feeling that I have carried with me to this day: If we hadn’t organized this march…” Who would have?” 

We were 5,000 people. This was the first gathering of Youth for Climate, which is now four years old. In the past four years, much has changed and much hasn’t. We were able to get a climate crisis law approved, an environmental education law passed, and the Escazú Accords ratified. We organized marches of over 50,000 people and have led over 70 educational workshops. The list goes on. The road to the world we want to make is long. But if we don’t do it, who will?

That’s just a little bit about the feelings that I carry—that have changed the story of my life and will, I know, accompany me forever.

Once upon a time, in the village of Mkupe, there lived a girl named Cherotich. Her name means “sunset”—a person who was born just before sunset. She loved the sea, and all the creatures in the sea. And she especially loved mangroves. When Cherotich was young, her father would lead her into a small canoe, and they would go riding down toward the horizon to view the sunset, to remind her what her name means: “a girl born just before the horizon.”

That girl born just before the horizon, is me. I grew up loving these beautiful sunset sails amid the mangroves with my father. In my village, the mangroves were known as “the guardians of the village.” But as the years passed by, I started to notice that the mangroves were being destroyed—people were cutting them down. They said that it was because mangroves are a strong source of hardwood—“So let us cut them down to build our houses. Let us cut them down to build our canoes.”

And after a long period of time, my village of Mkupe was wiped out by the attack of a tsunami. And do you know why? Because they had cut down the mikoko—“mikoko” means “mangrove” in Kiswahili. Our homes, our animals, our school, were all wiped out when the tsunami came. And do you know why? Because the humans cut the mangroves down and sold the wood for a small profit, forgetting the high profit that these living ecosystems bring to our planet and to our people.

Why do people overlook this value? Why do they cut the mangroves down so easily to pave the way for “infrastructure”? Now, the village of Mkupe is crying: you can hear the cry of the children. You can hear the cry of the mothers who lost their loved ones when the tsunami swept over the village.

Humans are responsible for their own destruction: we have destroyed the ecosystem that gives us life. And it’s not only about our lives. We need to realize that if we destroy these ecosystems, we are not only destroying ourselves: we are destroying the life that is under the sea as well. That day, when the tsunami came, the mangroves were very angry, because we had destroyed them. And now nothing remains in the village.

When the tsunami happened, we were so scared to go near the shore, because we thought that the sea was also going to swallow us. But nature can also be forgiving. Now, it’s allowing us to come back in. We have started the restoration process. Now we can see the crabs. We can see the shrimp. We can see all the animals slowly coming back. We can see the horizon, and we can see the trees that are starting to grow again above the waters—the mangroves.

Let’s never forget that we are part of nature, and that destroying nature is destroying us.

Esta no es mi historia: es la historia de mi abuela.

María Isabel, de 83 años, nacida en El Cajón, La Estrella, un pueblo ubicado en la zona central en Chile, clima templado y en ese entonces, un lugar donde abundaba la existencia de bosques esclerófilos y esteros. Hoy vive en San Gregorio, a 77km de su antiguo hogar. María es el nombre de una mujer sabia y empoderada, una mujer que dedica su vida a sus hijos, familia y nietos. Abuela de 3 mujeres y 7 hombres, hoy también bisabuela de Dominga. 

Desde pequeños solíamos compartir momentos familiares recargados de historias pasadas, historias sobre la infancia de nuestros abuelos, de la infancia de nuestros padres y cómo vivían conectados con la naturaleza y el campo. Historias sobre su forma de vida, un estilo de vida rural, donde el piso del hogar era de tierra, donde la producción de alimentos dependía de la propia familia, donde mi abuelo Orlando era quien debía llevar diariamente el alimento al hogar.

Esta historia no trata de cómo vivían mis abuelos y padres, es la historia de María al visitar su antiguo hogar después de 47 años sin vivir allí.

Fue un verano del 2020, previo al inicio de la pandemia. Ella tenía 82 años. Sus hijos de visita en su hogar. Era día miércoles y estaba cocinando el almuerzo, pero algo despertaba su mente y corazón, ella no sabía cómo pedirle a una de sus hijas que la llevara a visitar su antiguo hogar.

Después del almuerzo, Edita, su hija menor le da una noticia. Al día siguiente se levantarían temprano y tomarían rumbo a La Estrella.

El día jueves por la mañana ella no tenía 82 años, pareciera que tenía 18—como ella suele decir cuando le preguntan su edad—su energía desbordaba y la emoción por ver a sus antiguas vecinas o visitar los lugares donde solía caminar, solo le traían recuerdos a la mente.

Al llegar allá, la emoción seguía, pero algo le estaba causando una profunda tristeza. Sus vecinas no todas seguían viviendo allí, el lugar donde estaba su casa solo tenía el árbol donde lavaba la ropa bajo su sombra, en su mente solo se preguntaba: ¿Dónde está el estero que pasaba detrás de mi casa? ¿Ya no hay cóndores en la cueva del cerro? ¿Y el bosque esclerófilo? ¿Por qué hay viñas? ¿De dónde viene ese olor a desechos de animal? ¿Por qué hay un criadero de cerdos? ¿Por qué hay bosques de eucaliptos y pinos, si estos árboles no son de aquí? 

La verdad es que ya nada era igual. El estero no tenía agua, ya no habían cóndores, habían más casas construidas, el bosque había pasado de ser nativo a un monocultivo, el calor era insoportable, la situación era totalmente distinta. El ánimo de ella no era el mismo, sus hijos no se habían criado allí, no era el mismo lugar, ni las mismas personas. Ya no era igual. 

Al volver a su casa encendió el televisor y la noticia que vió era: La crisis climática avanza a gran escala en la zona central del país. Su única reacción fue: Ya nada es igual, dicen que es la crisis climática, pero yo digo que también es responsabilidad de las personas.

This isn’t my story—it’s the story of my grandmother.

María Isabel, 83 years old, was born in El Cajón, La Estrella—a small town located in the central region of Chile, with a temperate climate and, at that time, abundant sclerophyll forests and estuaries. Today, she lives in San Gregorio, 77 kilometers from her old home. María is the name of a wise and powerful woman, who dedicates her life to her kids, her family, and her grandchildren. Grandmother to three women and seven men, today she is also Great-Grandmother to Dominga. 

Since we were kids, we used to share family moments loaded with past stories, tales about the childhoods of our grandparents and our parents, and how they used to live, connected to nature and the fields. Stories about their rural way of life where the floor of their home was dirt, where food production depended on the family itself, where my grandpa Orlando had to bring in food daily for the home.

But this story is not about how my grandparents and parents used to live. This is the story of María, when she visited her old home after 47 years of not living there. 

It was the summer of 2020, before the start of the pandemic. She was 82 years old. Her sons were visiting home. It was a Wednesday, and she was cooking a meal, but something was awakening in her mind and her heart. She didn’t know how to ask one of her daughters to take her back to visit her old home. 

After lunch, Edita, her youngest daughter, gave her the news: the next day, they would wake up early and take off for La Estrella.

That Thursday morning, she was not 82 years old; it seemed like she was 18—which is what she normally says whenever anyone asks her age. Her energy was overflowing. She was excited to visit her old neighbors, or visit the places where she used to walk, which would only bring more and more memories to mind.

When they got there, her excitement continued, but something was also causing her a deep sadness. Her neighbors no longer lived there, and the only thing remaining in the place where her house had stood was the tree in whose shade she used to wash her clothes. And her mind started wondering: where’s the river that used to run behind my house? Are there no condors in the cave on the hill? And the sclerophyll forest? Why are there vineyards here? Where’s that smell of animal waste coming from? Why is there a pig pen here? Why are there forests of eucalyptus and pine, if those trees are not from here?

The truth is that nothing was the same anymore. The river had no water, there were no more condors, more houses had been built, and the forest had gone from being native to a monoculture. The heat was unbearable. The situation was totally different. The feeling was also not the same—her kids had not been raised here. It wasn’t the same place, wasn’t the same people. It was not the same. 

When she got back home, she turned on the TV, and the headline she saw was: “Climate Crisis Advances on a Large Scale in Central Region of Country.”  Her only reaction was, “Nothing is the same anymore. They say it’s the climate crisis, but I say it’s also the responsibility of the people.”

Hoy quiero hablarte de uno de mis temores, pero con esto no quiero asustarte,
Bien dicen que los sueños siempre intentan decirnos algo
y mis sueños casi siempre me revelan cosas que luego se hacen realidad;
en el descanso de la noche, muchas veces sueño cosas muy extrañas.
Alguna de estas es, ¿Cómo será el fin de nuestro mundo, de nuestro planeta Tierra?
y te cuento que no ha sido nada bonito,
en esos sueños perturbadores he visto destrucción y caos de muchas maneras
pero lo más interesante de mis sueños
es que siempre terminan con un rayo de luz solar muy luminoso, eso es esperanza para mí. 

Este rayo del sol me trae un buen recuerdo de mi infancia,
cuando era una niña de menos de 6 años
desayunaba escuchando la melodía de los pájaros,
el aroma del café que se mezclaba con las flores del campo
y un  rayo de luz llegaba a la mesa de mi comedor a través de la ventana;
creo que son los desayunos más inolvidables que he vivido y que quisiera repetir. 

Estos sueños se deben a que pienso mucho en la Tierra destruida,
siento que todo esto me sucede por el temor que me produce pensar en el futuro que estamos construyendo los humanos,
y lo vulnerable que me siento viviendo en mi tierrita con tantos conflictos actuales,
el mismo temor que experimenté cuando una fuerte lluvia se llevó el techo de mi casa,
el mismo temor que viví al dejar mi campo cuando era niña por causa del conflicto armado y la violencia,
el mismo temor que sentí en un accidente de tránsito al sentir que el tiempo no daba espera. 

Estos temores se profundizan cuando pienso en mi país,
Colombia es el país más biodiverso después de Brasil,
es también un país de encanto y de muchos colores que he podido recorrer hasta ahora,
pero también los estudios científicos dicen que es uno de los más vulnerables ante el cambio climático,
por esto también me siento en riesgo aún estando en mi propia casa. 

No comprendo ¿Por qué los humanos vivimos en la Tierra pero no nos sentimos parte de la Tierra?, por nuestras malas acciones con ella y el poco amor que le ofrecemos.

Pero no todo es caos, todas las mañanas me levanto de la cama
creyendo que tengo la capacidad para hacer muchas cosas buenas por la Tierra
y que puedo defenderla de tantos abusos,
y aquí te confieso que si pudiera ser animal
me gustaría ser un león, por lo menos ya tengo la melena [Jajaja];
un león fuerte y noble que cuida la vida del planeta capaz de vencer las angustias y temores.

Today, I want to tell you about one of my fears, but I don’t want to scare you.
They say that dreams are always trying to tell us something,
and my dreams almost always reveal things that later become reality.
At night, at rest, I often dream very strange things:
and one of them is, what will the end of the world be like, the end of our planet Earth?
And let me tell you—it’s not pretty.
In these disturbing dreams, I’ve seen destruction and chaos in so many ways,
but the most interesting thing about these dreams
Is that they often end with a very bright ray of sunlight, which, for me, is hope. 

This sunbeam brings up a good memory from my childhood:
when I was a child of less than six years old,
I used to have breakfast while listening to the birds singing,
and the smell of coffee would mix with the smell of flowers in the fields,
and a ray of light would hit the dining room table through our window;
I think those are the most unforgettable breakfasts that I’ve ever experienced, and I would love to repeat them.

These dreams come about because I think a lot about our earth, destroyed.
I think all of this happens because of the fear that I feel when I think about the future we humans are building,
and also because of how vulnerable I feel, living in my little land with so many current conflicts—
the same fear I experienced when a strong storm carried away the roof of my house,
the same fear I felt leaving the fields when I was a young girl because of conflict and violence,
the same fear I felt in a transit accident, feeling that time gave no pause.

These fears run deeper when I think about my country:
Colombia is the most biodiverse country after Brazil;
It’s a country of charm and so many colors that I’ve been able to visit up to now,
But studies also say that Colombia is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change;
So that’s why I feel at risk even now, just in my own house.

I don’t understand: why do we humans live on Earth, without feeling like a part of Earth, given all the bad actions we take against her and the little love we offer her?

But everything is not just chaos. Every morning I get out of bed
believing that I have the capacity to do many good things for Earth,
and that I can defend her from so much abuse.
Let me confess to you that, if I could be an animal,
I would love to be a lion—not least because I already have the mane (ha ha)—
A strong and noble lion who cares for the life of the planet, capable of taking down the anguish and the fear.

Something is on fire. 

I shuffle down a hot, narrow hallway on the fourth floor of Sardi’s, a restaurant in the heart of New York City’s theater district. The 2023 Drama Desk Awards have just concluded and a hundred of us are crammed into a dimly lit stairwell, bumping shoulders and hips as we make our way downstairs.

When we arrive to the first floor, a breeze rushes in through the front door smelling like charcoal. I inhale sharply a few times. “What is that?,” my friend asks, sort of lightly concerned. “Something burning in the kitchen?” Over the ten years that I’ve lived in New York, I’ve learned to expect emergency. This is Times Square. This is 2023. My body knows within seconds that something isn’t right, but no one else seems alarmed. It’s only Liza Minelli who looks out at me from the frame of her portrait like: “What’s the move, girl?”

Instinctively, I throw on my mask. I pull two more crumpled KN95s out of my bag and shove them at my friend and his uncle. “Put them on.” I insist. “Now.” They’re not sure, but they can see I’m starting to panic, so they slide them on as we rush east toward the Hudson Theatre (The award ceremony ran late, and we’re worried we won’t make curtain for A Doll’s House).

On 44^th street, I’m desperately searching for clues. My phone is taking twelve million years to turn on and meanwhile, everyone is going about their business, which makes me feel worse, not better. The sky is orange. “What’s happening?” I ask a woman holding her daughter’s hand outside McDonald’s. “Wildfire.” And then she’s gone, and a tide of tourists hustles me across Broadway. I’m stepping over potholes and dodging traffic and now my phone is finally on, and a CBS headline confirms “Canadian wildfires reach New York” and I realize I didn’t watch the news that day because I was too busy doing my hair for the awards ceremony and is anyone else feeling what I’m feeling?

In the past month since the wildfire smoke first arrived (and stayed and then left and then returned and returned), this is the thing I keep thinking about: The strange knowing I experienced before I understood what was happening. I knew it was climate before I knew it was wildfire. And having thought about this for a few weeks now, I’m sure I owe that knowing to the climate stories I’ve had the privilege of reading and listening to.

In the context of environmental storytelling, I get asked a lot about hope. What about hope? I spend too much time thinking about the responsibility of hope and worrying about how much hope to include or not include in my own work. These days, I am reassured by a line in Andrea Gibson’s Take Me With You: “Even when the truth isn’t hopeful, the telling of it is.”

I owe the instinct I felt on June 6^th to Donna Haraway, Amitav Ghosh, and Bayo Akomolafe. To Miranda and Robert and Geoff. To Jacob and Helene and the storytellers on this project. To the journalists and the scientists and the friends and activists who have offered their stories up for others to hear and be transformed by. Thank you for your truth telling. Your parables, warnings, and wisdom are my protection.